A Pennsylvania woman is in critical condition following a gruesome black bear attack, officials with the Pennsylvania Game Commission said.

The bear reportedly dragged Melinda Lebarron, of Muncy Creek Township, by her leg for more than 80 yards before she was able to escape the animal and crawl back to her home to call for help, WNEP-16 reported.

KILLER WHALES SURROUND NEW ZEALAND WOMAN IN STUNNING DRONE FOOTAGE

The attack occurred Wednesday evening while Lebarron was outside with her dog, which was also apparently injured during the incident.

She was taken to the Geisinger Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. Lebarron reportedly suffered broken ribs, a broken collarbone, multiple puncture wounds and partial scalping.

It’s not clear what caused the bear to attack, but officials with the game commission said the bear may have been attracted to deer parts from a recent hunting trip that was left near the woman’s home.

When Judie Johnson of Hahei, New Zealand recently took a dip off the coast of Coromandel, she never expected to be surrounded by a pod of orca whales.

"There was a shape that went under me, like a huge shape and I thought [it was] dolphins and I was quite excited, and then I saw the great white color on the back,” she told New Zealand's 1 NEWS of the experience.

At first, the woman was frightened, telling the news outlet she quickly swam to shore because she was fearful the orcas — also known as killer whales — would harm her.

"I was also thinking they eat seals and I’m in a black wetsuit," Johnson said.

But moments later, she decided to jump back into the water to complete her swim.

The orcas again surrounded her, twisting and turning whimsically below as she gracefully switched from a backstroke to a breaststroke, drone video captured by Australian tourist Dylan Brayshaw shows, according to 1 NEWS.

"It was so different to anything that’s happened to me before, and I thought, no, this is a life-changing experience,” Johnson recalled, adding at one point during her swim she gazed “directly” into the eyes of the adult orca as the smaller two swam nearby.

"They were as interested and curious about me as I was about them,” she added.

GIRL FINDS DEADLY, 'HIGHLY VENOMOUS' BLUE RINGED OCTOPUS ON BEACH

These sea creatures are “just big dolphins with a fancy paint job,” orca expert Regina Eisert told 1 NEWS, adding they are the largest members of the dolphin family.

While orca whales are carnivores — they feed on seals, sea lions and sometimes other whales, according to National Geographic — they don’t typically attack humans, and there have been no reported instances of a killer whale eating a human, according to the website Whale Facts.

Madeline Farber is a Reporter for Fox News. You can follow her on Twitter @MaddieFarberUDK.

The Internet’s newest celebrity may be small, but he has a big attitude.

A roughly 4-to-6-month-old bobcat in Utah – dubbed "Mr. Murderbritches" – has made headlines for his feisty personality, which he exhibited with swats and hisses as Joshua Carver, a conservation officer with the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), first released the snarling cat back into the wild after he was caught “red pawed” eating a chicken out of a coop in Kanarraville.

UTAH COUPLE NARROWLY ESCAPE GANG OF MACHETE-WIELDING BANDITS IN KENYA

The video, initially posted by the Utah DWR on Nov. 26, went viral after the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit organization based in Arizona, reposted it with “quotes” from the feline himself.

“I GET U BOI,” the bobcat “says” while snarling and swatting at Carver in the video. “I SAVAGE U,” he adds with a hiss.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the video had more than 700,000 views on Twitter.

Carver was first made aware of Mr. Murderbritches after a homeowner in Kanarraville spotted the feline in their chicken coop on Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving. The cat was in the coop but hadn’t killed any chickens at the time. He was let out by an Iron County sheriff’s deputy, Carver told Fox News on Tuesday.

A live trap was promptly set up just in case Mr. Murderbritches returned, and he did: The following day the cat was found in the trap. He was subsequently held for one night in captivity and was later released away from the property.

But the cunning feline somehow found his way back. This time, he successfully killed and ate a chicken from the coop.

Carver then took the cat to a mountainous area west of where he was first found. But little to Carver’s knowledge, this wouldn’t be his last encounter with the feline. Mr. Murderbritches then made his way to an isolated property miles away from where he was freed. There, he was found stuck in a dog kennel.

“He was probably looking for an easy meal and got scared [by the dog],” Carver theorized.

Carver captured the cat once more, feeding him a delicious meal of roadkill deer and a pheasant killed by an eagle before releasing the feline even farther away near Indian Peaks, an area Carver said provides “a lot of food resources.” The conservation officer hasn't seen him since.

Carver said bobcats typically leave their mother at about six months of age. While Mr. Murderbritches appears to be small, his willingness to hunt for food — even trekking for miles to do so — is a good sign for the juvenile.

“I do everything in my power to protect wildlife,” Carver said. “The best case here is to try to [help him] make it on his own. If he wasn’t doing well we wouldn’t have released him; we would have looked for a rehab center to take him to.”

And while the Mr. Murderbritches’ behavior may scare some, Carver found it amusing.

"I get a kick out of wildlife being wild."

— Joshua Carver

“I get a kick out of wildlife being wild,” Carver said, noting the cat was “too mean” for the conservation officer to tell if the animal was male or female at first.

WISDOM, THE WORLD’S OLDEST WILD BIRD, LAYS ANOTHER EGG AT 68

“Reaching out and getting [swatted] … he cracked me up,” Carver said, noting he never expected the video of the first release to go viral.

“I liked his attitude,” he added.

Madeline Farber is a Reporter for Fox News. You can follow her on Twitter @MaddieFarberUDK.

A Hawaiian monk seal was spotted over the summer with an eel hanging out of its nose, according to a photo shared by the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program on Monday.

“Mondays…it might not have been a good one for you but it had to have been better than an eel in your nose,” the group, which is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), wrote.

GIRL FINDS DEADLY, 'HIGHLY VENOMOUS' BLUE RINGED OCTOPUS ON BEACH

Experts with the organization told Hawaii News Now the eel was seen dangling from the seal’s nose near the French Frigate Shoals over the summer. Field researchers — who were in the area at the time to study the seal population there — noted the “rare” sighting and were quick to restrain the animal before removing the lengthy creature from its snout.

The removal process reportedly took less than a minute, according to the publication.

The eel likely entered the monk seal’s nose when it was feeding in coral reefs, as these sea creatures “feed by sticking their noses in coral reefs and digging in sand,” the group told Hawaii News Now, noting "it is possible the eel was defending itself or trying to escape and forced itself into the nose.”

There's also a possibility “the seal regurgitated it and it went out the wrong place. More likely the first…,” the group told the publication.

Officials with the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program said they have reported on the odd phenomenon in the past, explaining it was "first noted a few years back," the group added.

"We have now found juvenile seals with eels stuck in their noses on multiple occasions. In all cases, the eel was successfully removed and the seals were fine. The eels, however, did not make it,” the organization wrote.

The picture elicited a variety of jokes and comments on social media, many users comparing the sighting to other unusual — and dangerous — trends among today’s youth, such as eating Tide Pods and snorting condoms.

“Where are these young seals learning this eel sniffing stuff from? Video games?” one person joked.

“First it was the cinnamon challenge, then tide pods, then the ice challenge, then snorting condoms, now snorting eels?” a second wrote.

“It starts with Tide Pods….” another said.

Hawaiian monk seals are “one of the most endangered seal species in the world,” according to the NOAA. While recovery efforts have slowed the declining population, the “current numbers are only about one-third of historic population levels."

Spotted hyenas and lions have a similar diet; the two often “cover the same ground, hunt the same prey, and scavenge the same remains of animals,” according to National Geographic. Both species are known to steal food for each other as well as chase one another, the publication reported.

“A lion male is twice the size of a spotted hyena and three to four times as heavy, and one single paw stroke can kill an adult hyena. Hyenas, therefore, are careful during encounters with adult lions for good reason,” the Hyena Project in the Ngorongoro Crater states online.

Madeline Farber is a Reporter for Fox News. You can follow her on Twitter @MaddieFarberUDK.

A Richmond, Virginia man who illegally fed bears for a decade in an alleged effort to protect them has been convicted.

The man, who was not been publicly identified, was convicted Nov. 7 following years of reports of “unusual bear activity” near his property, NBC12 reported, citing the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Prior to his conviction, the man reportedly admitted to feeding the bears, telling officials he spent an estimated $10,000 on food for the animals each year, the department said, according to NBC12. He claimed feeding the bears was a way to “protect” them from poachers and help those that were sick or hurt.

But his actions caused conservation officers to trap and remove many “nuisance” bears in the area throughout the years; the animals have become accustomed to human food and have caused “thousands of dollars of damage to surrounding property,” the news station reported.

The bears also reportedly had symptoms of sarcoptic mange, a skin condition caused by mites that are easily spread from animal to animal.

The Oregon Zoo in Portland was closed Friday following the unexpected death Thursday night of Lily, a 6-year-old Asian elephant who was considered "the darling of the zoo," according to the park's director.

Lily, the youngest member of the zoo's elephant family, had been diagnosed Wednesday with an active strain of endotheliotropic herpesvirus, but didn't immediately show any symptoms, the zoo said in a statement, the Oregonian reported.

When she was lethargic and uninterested in food on Thursday morning, vets treated her with fluids, medication and a transfusion, but to no avail. Lily succumbed to the viral infection late Thursday night — one day before her sixth birthday, the paper reported.

"I can't imagine a more devastating loss for this zoo family and our community," zoo director Don Moore said in a statement obtained by the Oregonian. "Lily was the darling of the zoo. She was loved by everyone from her elephant family to the people who cared for her every day to her thousands of fans.”

"I can’t imagine a more devastating loss for this zoo family and our community. Lily was the darling of the zoo. She was loved by everyone from her elephant family to the people who cared for her every day to her thousands of fans.”

— Don Moore, director, Oregon Zoo

Her mother Rose-Tu and people who cared for her since birth surrounded Lily when she passed, a statement on the zoo's Facebook said.

"Veterinary and care staff did all they could to save her, and Lily fought hard to the end," the statement said. "Lily brought joy to everyone she encountered. This is a heartbreaking loss for the herd and our entire community.

The Oregon Zoo was closed all of Friday, including for the scheduled evening ZooLights. It was to reopen Saturday, Fox 12 Oregon reported.

A former NFL player used one of the lowest points of his life to propel him forward into doing something no other football player has ever done – climb the Seven Summits.

Mark Pattison, 56, played three seasons in the NFL with the Los Angeles Raiders, Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, but football didn’t appear to be in his DNA. According to Houston's KHOU-TV, Pattison went on to found a gaming company, a digital media company and a retail company.

It wasn’t until 2011 when things started to get tough for Pattison.

In that year, he and his wife of 24 years split up. Soon after, his father passed away from a stroke. Pattison said it was years before he was able to turn it around and turned to nature to help him.

“My mind was always like, ‘How did I get here?” Pattison told KHOU. “Finally after a couple of years, I was just like … I’m stuck. And you can’t move forward to do anything unless you get unstuck.”

Pattison then embarked on a journey to become the first player to climb the Seven Ssummits. They include Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa; Mount Elbus in Europe; Mount Kosciusko in Australia; Aconcagua in South America; Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) in North America; Mount Vinson in Antartica; and Mount Everest in Asia.

“It’s not about the summit, it’s about the journey,” Pattison said.

Since 2013, he’s completed five of the seven summits. He plans on completing the final summit, Everest, in 2020, according to KHOU-TV.

Ryan Gaydos is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.

A belligerent otter eating cherished koi carp in a famous Chinese garden in the Canadian city of Vancouver is evading capture since it appeared last weekend, with staff distraught over the loss of fish.

It remains unclear how the otter managed to break into the garden, officials at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden told the BBC. They are working with the city to safely capture the creature and relocate it.

Officials say the otter may have eaten seven of the garden's 14 fish since its appearance last weekend.

The pond and its koi are an important detail of the park and had cultural significance, said communications director Debbie Cheung.

OTTER FILMED RUNNING THROUGH SUPERMARKET IN IRELAND

One of the fishes, named “Madonna,” is reportedly about 50 years old and has been in the garden for about two decades. “Some of [the koi] have been with us for a long, long time. We see them as part of the team,” she told the broadcaster.

The otter in the garden brought the attention of Vancouver residents, with both the supporters and the detractors of the otter coming to the garden to see the predator.

“I thought it was pretty badass and so I came to check it out,” Italian student Max Bottega told CBC, saying he’s “definitely team otter.”

But others weren’t so excited of an otter preying on precious koi carp. “They're cool fish,” a 9-year-old boy told the outlet, saying he’s sad about what the otter did. “They're my favorite type of fish.”

KALEY CUOCO AND HUSBAND KARL COOK TRY TO HELP RESCUE A BABY SEAL ON THANKSGIVING

The otter situation forced the officials to close the tourist attraction “to facilitate containment of the river otter.”

In a Friday statement announcing the closure, the garden said “seven of our adult koi have been killed. They are an integral part of the Garden family and our cultural heritage, and we do not take their loss lightly.”

The Vancouver Park director Howard Normann said a trap set up earlier this week failed after it got blocked by a tree branch, allowing the otter to eat the bait.

“The otter did take our tuna, did take our trout, did take our chicken,” he told the BBC.

Additional traps were set up so the otter could be caught and transported to “a really nice new home.”

The Chinese garden is reportedly the first of its kind built outside China.

Lukas Mikelionis is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @LukasMikelionis.